


freetown

by slybrunette



Category: Weeds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slybrunette/pseuds/slybrunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>slightly au take on the premiere. he'd like to rule a country; sometimes dreams are better when they stay locked inside of your head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	freetown

So.

There was this one time where Andy ran for leader-slash-president-slash-other-applicable-term-here of a tiny drug-filled country called Christiania.

And won.

(The Danish authorities would like to state here that none of the above is factual in any way, shape or form. Those drug stands were removed back in 2004. And negotiations are still ongoing as to just how ‘free’ Freetown Christiania is.

Andrew Botwin did win the election, though, or he would’ve if it was a country.

Which it’s not.

They’re pretty sure.

Maybe.)

 

 

 

There is a sash.

No, this is not a Miss America pageant. Because then there would be a crown and there definitely isn’t one of those, he’s checked.

“At least you were on the fucking ballot. That’s the key right there,” Doug says. Not _congratulations_ or anything remotely supportive, just waxing nostalgic on the failures of his former campaign manager. Andy raises an eyebrow and gets a pat on the back for his troubles but hey, he won an election, and Doug’s obliviousness and Silas’ absence are not going to keep this one from going in the win column.

 

 

 

Nancy gets released into the halfway house and Shane books tickets to New York, and doesn’t even look shocked much less bothered when Andy turns him down, says he’s got a good thing going here and he can’t get sucked back into her web again and a bunch of other excuses that he used to throw at Nancy during _The Esteban Time_.

Yes, in italics. Yes, in capitals. Completely necessary.

(The day Andy heard he was murdered in prison, he couldn’t decide whether to declare it a national holiday – he can do that now, technically, sort of; the extent of his power is still a matter of contention – or feel a little bad for the guy.

Mostly the memory of having to flee the country after his nephew was driven to murder by this fucked up Mexican mafia situation keeps him from doing the latter. He can blame the events leading up to their adventure in off-the-grid living on Nancy very easily, he’s done it many times, but he can also blame it on Esteban and there are some days where that is the preferred option.)

It’s really not that he doesn’t want to go, it’s that he actually can’t go. Funny thing about being the leader of a small sort-of-country that’s frequently in the midst of negotiations with the Danish government over whether or not they even own the land they’re sitting on – they actually want you there for that, once you’re their leader.

He had to wear a suit once. Twice.

Not quite the experience he planned on having but it’s an experience and one he will most likely be having again in the very near future, more specifically Monday.

So Andy stays, and Doug goes with Shane because…who knows, and Silas stalks around the apartment complaining about needing his beauty sleep and actually meaning it while he chugs water instead of alcohol.

(This is so not what he thought he was getting himself into.)

 

 

 

“You’re president?”

“Yeah.”

“Of a country?”

“Yeah. It’s on the small side, sure, but – “ why in god’s name is he cutting himself down _for_ her? He puts the kibosh on the rest of that sentence.

“How small is small?”

“The population varies. It’s usually somewhere between 850, maybe 900, people.”

“But you’re still in charge. Of 900 people.”

“Hey, I did pretty good with Shane. He’s non-violent now. Mostly. There was that midsummer incident with the bonfire and the -- you know what, that’s not important.”

It takes him a moment to realize that Nancy’s laughing, rather hysterically, into the phone. He should be wildly offended right now, really, and if he knew what was good for him he would be, but right now he’s mostly focused on the sound of her laughter and how nice it feels to hear it again.

 

 

 

Trying to run Wonderful Wonderful Tours without Doug’s help is a fool’s errand. Between the slowly warming weather and his newfound local fame, he’s handling more customers with less time and less help, but he won’t give it up because he actually enjoys this part of his day.

It’s the only part of his day he likes right now, actually.

It’s the part where he gets to be the likeable goofball instead the fish out of water hippie anarchist that the government has decided he is. The government doesn’t like him and the people don’t like that he’s willing to try and work with the government – they have blockades for that, they have Molotov cocktails for that – and Andy? He’s really not used to being disliked by this many people at the same time. He doesn’t react well to it.

He usually runs from it.

 

 

 

Doug calls to tell him about a potential business opportunity in New York and ends said call by asking him if Shane got back to Copenhagen okay.

Which. No. He’s fairly certain he would’ve noticed that.

He winds up tracking his rogue nephew down in Oakland by redialing his cell phone number roughly two dozen times in twenty minutes – fuck long distance charges – which is a pretty impressive show of faux parental protectiveness. Very Papa Bear. Nancy would be proud (no, she wouldn’t).

“I’m going to get Stevie,” he says, and that part about Shane being non-violent now is something that Andy is slowly starting to think was a jinx. Annoyed doesn’t quite cover his tone.

Andy starts to say “he’s with your Aunt Jill; he’s fine” but halfway through he realizes that Shane hung up on him. All subsequent redials get met with no answer and he can’t directly call Nancy in her halfway house prison-away-from-prison, never mind that if he lied to Doug he might have also lied to her.

He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on.

He’s completely out of the loop.

 

 

 

“Your brother’s gone off the grid.”

“Who did he kill now?”

It’s not funny. It’s really not. But it is when you’re from this family.

“He’s gone to get Stevie. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know.” He leans back but can’t sit still for long enough to not straighten right back up again. That’s been his entire day and it’s starting to manifest into this slow rocking thing like he should be in a padded white room somewhere. “Dammit, I knew I should’ve gone with him.”

“He would’ve run off anyways.” Silas shakes his head. “He does whatever the fuck he wants. He’s just like mom.”

There’s no good argument against either of those sentiments.

 

 

 

“You always did have a thing for politicians.”

“ _A_ politician. Singular. Past tense.”

“Politicians, DEA agents, people in power – whatever.” He can see her this time. It’s not just a phone; it’s a computer, a webcam, her face. He doesn’t know where she is, exactly, but he’d put money on it being an internet café because where there’s coffee, there’s Nancy. “He was a mayor; I’m a president. That’s got to count for something.”

Her mouth turns up at the corners but it’s misleading; it’s somehow closer to a grimace than a smile. “You’re actually comparing yourself to him?”

“I’m just saying.”

“Yeah, well, I’m officially three-for-three, so I wouldn’t be making any plays just now, if I were you.”

“I’m not.”

 

 

 

Shane returns to New York with Stevie in tow.

Andy doesn’t want to fucking know how many laws he broke or how he wrangled Jill’s key piece of leverage out of her hands. Nancy does, though, and somehow this too will be his fault.

 

 

 

Doug’s business opportunity leads to an actual well-paying job and it follows that he’s not coming back to Copenhagen. Andy never really thought he would and the reality is starting to hit home that Shane isn’t either.

It’s just him and Silas, and it’s weird, now, to come home to a house that’s empty more than it’s not. Silas keeps odd hours and starts bringing his pretty blonde makeup artist home with him and Andy sees more of her, standing in the kitchen brewing coffee and making the argument for why organic _everything_ is better than the alternative, then he does of his nephew. And he knows something’s up but he doesn’t know what or how to ask or what to do about it even if he did.

He spaces out. Starts thinking of New York like an eventuality; it’s depressing, really, because this was his dream, his fucking dream, and not three years later he’s discovering that dreams lose some of their shine, their allure, once you’ve achieved them. The government talks privatization and building restrictions and Andy can’t hang around Pusher Street without getting a dirty look from someone. The bloom is definitely off the rose there.

(He really thought he could do this, you know. He really thought he could be this guy.)

 

 

 

“You’re going to New York?”

“I am.”

Silas is about as joyless at the prospect as Andy imagined he would be. “And yet you’re the one who’s all ‘she’s poison and i don’t want to get caught in her web again’ or what-the-fuck-ever.”

“It’s been three years. Maybe three years in jail changes a person. Even if that person is your mother.”

“People don’t fucking change, Andy.”

(And maybe it’s that right there, that ugly bit of truth that no matter how much you wax on about growth and change you’re still the same person in your bones, that’s the problem.)

 

 

 

Resigning as leader-slash-president-slash-other-applicable-term-here of a tiny drug-filled country really requires more paperwork than it ought to. Especially when you’ve only been in said position for a month.

Niels, up by twenty points in the polls before Andy smiled at the right people in the right order or a fucking miracle happened, whichever, has this smug look on his face when he says, “never did think you were cut out for this. You’re much more of a follower than a leader anyway.”

“Yeah,” he signs on a dotted line, “I guess I am.”

 

 

 

“I still fucking love you.”

Nancy’s gaze doesn’t waver, shitty internet connection and three-second time delay be damned. “I know.”

(He’s not leaving for her. Not in that way, anyway. She’s got more than half of her term left to serve out in a halfway house and even though he knows, _knows_ , that somehow she’ll be out well before that, will trick the system or throw herself right back into the same business that killed her and have to run again, he can’t count on any of that to change where they were before when they were traveling cross-country in an RV. He loves her – he’s starting to get that that’s as unlikely to change as his DNA is – but he’s lost the delusion that reciprocity depends on how hard he pushes and how hard he tries to get under the surface.

But he gets who he is with her. He likes himself better with her. And it’s not happiness, not quite, but it’s better than this.)

 

 

 

Andy takes his last tour group through Christiania on a Friday in the middle of a cold snap. Distributes t-shirts and forgets his own in the laundry, the contents of his room thrown all over his bed and the floor to the point where he sleeps on the couch instead of trying to deal with it. It’s been three years and a lifetime, in its own way, and he’s finding it isn’t as easy to just throw a week’s worth of clothes in and just _go_.

Silas shows up on his break, while he’s letting them wander around Pusher Street. Both the coffee he hands him and the amount of eyeliner he’s wearing is suspect. “You’re looking a little more heavy-metal rocker than Baywatch right now, I got to say.”

“I left right after the shoot.”

“I’m guessing you’ve moved on from flower water.”

“Different marketing strategy.”

“I’ll say.”

Silas looks at his hands when he tells him “i quit,” wavering between shame and sadness. Andy resists the urge to reach out, give him a pat on the shoulder, something reassuring, but Silas would just shrug it off in the name of pride. He’s prepared that. He was prepared for this too.

He bought two plane tickets on a hunch.

They were always just killing time.

“Because people don’t change, right?”

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

He ruled a country once.

(Fog settles over the city as it disappears beneath the clouds.)

 

 

 

 _fin._


End file.
